"Get em onside ya mug"

I loved playing rugby league as a young kid but I was very small, and as I got to 14 years of age the kids got bigger and heavier and I was getting pounded. I was playing in the Souths Junior League and they used to distribute a weekly newsletter where teams would submit reports on their performances from the previous week and the junior league could advise clubs of the upcoming draw and other matters. In this newsletter I used to read the referee’s report which I always found interesting. Toward the end of the season this report outlined a course for people to learn the rules and become a referee. The standout clause was YOU GOT PAID!

This piqued my interest as I was a poor kid from a poor family and bonehead forwards were taking great delight in picking up this little halfback and smashing him into the ground. So, myself and my mate Graeme attended the course, passed our test and received our junior referee ticket and so begun a new interest that changed the course of my life.

I joined the South Sydney Referees Association in 1971 and my first game was an under 8’s game at Waterloo Oval. I had no idea of what I was doing and no one came to coach me apart from my dad who suggested it might be a good idea to run back to half way after a try was scored instead of walking. Probably a good point.

Over the next few years I made some great friends in the referee ranks and these guys are still my best mates to this day. We attended each other’s weddings and acted as best men/groomsmen for each other and were godfathers for each other’s kids. The players reckon were all such good mates because no one else would talk to us .

The process for our weekend of football was quite complex. Friday night we would all meet at a club/hotel and drink till ‘stumps’. Saturday we’d run a line and referee a game in the afternoon and then go to the pub/club and drink till ‘stumps’. Sunday would see us turn up at a ground around 11am, run a couple of lines and referee a game then go to the pub/club, have dinner and drink till stumps. Mondays weren’t good at work.

The blokes I ran with were such characters. Many games in the Junior League were quite boring when teams started running up huge scores against their opposition. As such, we needed to amuse ourselves during these types of games by trying annoy the referee when running his line. This would usually entail running in with our flag up at a break in play and call out a random player for an alleged transgression. When the player arrived we’d ignore him and start a conversation about where we would be going for a drink after the game. Another rather good scam was one touch taking the other’s flag when behind the posts for a kick at goal and putting both flags up while other touch judge stood there with his arms folded.

The referee would retaliate by making the touch judges run on when they thought they saw a forward pass. Touch judges were supposed to 'prop' when running down the line to indicate to the referee that the pass was forward. The referee would just throw the touchie the bird and say "keep running".

There were some memorable moments on the field regarding banter between the referee and the players. I got my first look at this as a young 16 yo running my first A grade line. The referee was a very experienced man in his 40’s with a quick wit. He had just blown a penalty against a player who, in a fit of exasperation spluttered out “you &%$# ref!”.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he realised he’d made a terrible mistake. The 25 other players looked at him with mouths agape in fear. Their gaze then moved to the referee expecting swift punishment. The referee calmly called the player over to him. The player approached timidly fully expecting to get his marching orders. The ref looked at him square in the eyes with a broad smile on his face and said ‘ You might think I’m %$#@, I might think I’m a %$#@, but don’t tell all the other blokes.’. Everyone burst into laughter, the player apologised and the game went on without further incident. It was a brilliant moment and showed me that there was no need to be ‘nazi' refereeing the game, it was all about getting the players onside and working with them to produce a good game of footy.

Yet there were other older referees that just didn’t get this and they were the ones that always got themselves into trouble. A few months after that incident I ran a line with a referee that was the polar opposite. A nasty man who treated the players like idiots and received no respect from them.

The game was a tough, close one with a number of nasty incidents occurring before one of the teams scored a controversial try. The referee awarded it and one of the opposition players wanted to dispute it. The referee turned around and said "Come here you idiot". Talk about a red rag to a bull! The player was a large unit who walked straight up to the ref and sat him on his backside with a well placed straight right. I raced onto the ground to protect him and the player turned to me and said "you want some of this too?" I cant say that I did. Luckily one his team mates was an old friend of mine who came to my rescue and led him away. The player was sent off obviously but the game was a disaster and I was lucky to escape the ground intact. I never had any respect for this referee for the rest of his days and referees and players I’m in contact with from those times also have no respect for him. As they tell you when you get your referee’s ticket, respect doesn’t come with the badge, you have to earn it.

I quickly learned to work with the players and for the most part I had a very good rapport with them. The tougher they were, the more important it was to keep close to them on the field and talk constantly to them to ensure they didn’t transgress. Sometimes that didn’t work and you’d have no option other than to send them off. Oddly enough, most got to judiciary and admitted their guilt and we continued on with a solid relationship. Just recently I took an ex player I’d sent off 3 times in the 1970’s out to the SCG members for an AFL game and a few quiet drinks. We remain good friends and oddly enough, he and his son are now referees.

The heckling from the crowd was eye watering at times. There was the frequent and standard “get em onside ya mug" to my favourite “ Hey Linesman, you’re not only blind but you’re stupid”. My wife was always embarrassed coming to games and when she bought the kids along it became quite funny as it took them a deal of time to work out that all this abuse was actually aimed at their dad.

My favourite opponent was the bloke we called the Coogee Heckler. He was an old fellow about 80ish who would wander down to Coogee Oval around noon every Sunday and stand at the fence behind the Northern Goal posts. He had no idea of who the teams where, he just seemed to hate referees. He’d be at the refs with comments like “why don’t you give the Blue team a penalty”. After a while he’d come into the ground and stand next to the gate where the players and referees would run off and onto the field and give it to us as we went past.

One day he held his glasses out to me as I left the field for half time and said “here you go ref, you need these”. I promptly took them from him, said ‘thanks’ and continued up the stairs to the rooms. On returning to the field I handed them back with a smile on my face. I said “thanks for those, by the way, how are going?”. He took the glasses and said “Not real well. I’ve been a bit crook and my daughter isn’t very well either” He looked quite sad and I genuinely felt sorry for him. It appears Sundays were his big day out and if I could let him have some fun bagging the ref then well and good.

Prior to becoming a referee, I was a quiet, shy lad. Within a few years I had come out my shell and became a totally different person with a great deal of self-confidence. It was a life changing move indeed and something I tried to instill in my daughters. They both took up Netball umpiring (as I did when they started playing) and while the older girl didn’t stick with it, she is a supremely confident young lady and the younger one is a magnificent umpire who is now a senior umpire and could have gone into the professional ranks but other interests and lack of financial reward kept her unmotivated to continue on that path.

The only problem with NRL Refereeing is that the judging and subsequent promotion is very subjective and ‘mate' orientated. This is becoming far more evident today as the NRL struggles with poor refereeing standards brought about by the lack of solid coaching and the promotion of ‘mates’ in the ranks. A lot of the old proven ways have gone by the wayside as sub-par referees found their way to grade on the back of friends while many good referees got left behind in the junior ranks and received little in the way of coaching. One small word in the wrong ear could end a career before it even started. Its very political and you need to be a diplomat to find your way to the top, hence we have a group of pseudo politicians running around acting as NRL referees with no common sense or feel for the game. Its now a full-time gig with great financial rewards so there are people climbing over each other to get this job, just like pollies 😊

I am hopeful that someday soon the NRL will appoint someone to run the referees who has some foresight and common sense. That person would work toward improving the ranks from the grass roots to the top and create some solid pathways for the aspiring referee. Currently, this is just a pipe dream